Yes They Did!

We are off in the canyons of Utah around Moab. It was my intention not to write anything this week, giving you all a break. But the knee that was surgered is acting up, so I am grounded. I’ll have time on my hands as the others are off wandering.

Nothing much going on in politics. There’s a Kabuki theater around a supposed financial reform bill, with Republicans and one Democratic senator against it, as I read. Oddly, that’s enough! Funny how that works, that. It’s as if they divvy up votes beforehand – as if the leadership of the parties worked together.

They do. The labels – D and R, are mere perception management devices. There are enough right wingers in the Democratic Party to stop good legislation. Theoretically there were enough votes to stop the wars, pass good health care reform, end the tax cuts, close Gitmo – it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

Of course, the interesting thing for me are the psychological aspects, the thought control. It’s like mass hypnosis. With health care, the perception to be sold is that they “got it done.” (“Yes We Did!”) They didn’t, but the leadership of the party will sell it, and the rest of the party will buy in. That’s how groups function, with internal contradictions squashed.

There is no hope for progress on any front via party activities. One cannot change the Democratic Party from within, as the leadership, and the money, is controlled by the conservative wing, which seems to be the majority. And, when candidates do manage to get support from that wing, we have to assume that those candidates are closet conservatives.

That’s why the concept of “gradualism” is a hiding place for losers. The Democratic Party suctions off people who want real change, and renders them useless. Join, disappear and die.

What is the alternative? It’s bleak. With health care, the proper course was to take the massive momentum for reform and channel it at the Democratic Party rather than through it. Reformers were snookered into investing in the party, which duly led them down the garden path.

But how to organize? Door by door, neighborhood by neighborhood, forsaking political leaders. We cannot control legislation in Washington, as the place is corrupt beyond repair.

But, for example, but what if neighborhood activists got together to sponsor free clinics for people to go with ordinary complaints like fevers, wounds and broken bones? They could dredge up volunteer labor, sponsor fund-raisers, charge a membership fee. Most health care, after all, is routine,hardly rocket science.

If an idea is successful, others will copy it. (By the way, if the U.S. health care system was worth a damn, other countries would steal the idea.)

That is a good way to channel energy, locally. It would be real progress in health care. Take that same energy and channel it through Democratic candidates, and you get nothing back but a bumper sticker that says “Yes We Did,” aka perception management.

So the first step in organization is to get people to shed their illusions about party politics. That’s all I do – I continually point out on the blogs that the parties are mirror images of one another in corruption, and that being a Democrat is as wrong as the other alternative.

I will continue to do so. It’s all one person can do from an Internet standpoint. I will join with like-minded people down here IF, and only if, such people are not trying to affect politics on too high a level. It all starts down low.